Murder Case At The Center Of A Wildly Popular Podcast Will Go Before An Appeals Court

A 15-year-old murder case that landed a popular teenager from
Baltimore County behind bars for life is being revived in a
podcast that offers more questions than answers about the crime
and its fallout.

Ultimately, a Maryland appeals court will decide the man's fate.

Millions of listeners are anxiously awaiting the next installment
of Serial, a podcast from the creators of "This American Life"
that tells the story of Adnan Syed, a Woodlawn High School
student who was found guilty in 2000 of murdering his
ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee. The podcast is the brainchild of
longtime radio producer and former Baltimore Sun reporter Sarah
Koenig, who spent more than a year digging into Syed's case and
reporting her findings in almost real-time in hour-long segments
released online every Thursday (with the exception of
Thanksgiving).

Nine episodes in, the podcast has attracted more than 1.5 million
listeners per episode worldwide and turned Syed into something of
a household name, inspiring a dedicated fan base, recap blogs,
and even spin-off podcasts, not to mention heated debates around
countless water coolers and dinner tables about Syed's guilt or
innocence.

But although the buzz surrounding the case is new, Syed has been
trying to prove his innocence for years — so long, in fact, that
his case is now in its final stages of appeal. A hearing
scheduled for January represents what Syed's lawyer, C. Justin
Brown, said was the man's "last best chance" at freedom.

"I joke that when I was hired to do Adnan's appeal I was a
free-wheeling single man, and now I'm married with two kids. It's
been a lengthy process," said Brown, who has represented Syed for
more than five years. "There are three parts to the legal
process: a trial, then an appeal, then you have post-conviction
relief. This is the last step."

Syed, now 34, was convicted of first-degree murder, robbery, and
false imprisonment in 2000 and sentenced to life in prison.
Prosecutors said Syed strangled Lee after becoming inconsolably
jealous when the two broke up and she began dating someone else.

The primary points Brown makes in his appeal are some of the same
reasons Koenig told listeners in her podcast's first episode that
she decided to investigate the case: there were no eye-witnesses
tying Syed to the crime, and Syed's attorney, Cristina Gutierrez,
failed to interview a witness who said she was with Syed at the
time Lee was killed. Gutierrez, a high-profile Baltimore-area
criminal defense attorney, was disbarred in 2001 when client
funds went missing. She died in 2004 of a heart attack.

Brown in his appeal says Gutierrez knew about Asia McClain, a
classmate of Syed's who saw him in the library around the time
prosecutors say Lee was killed. But Brown says the attorney
failed to pursue her alibi during trial.

"The entire trial depended on whether Syed could prove where he
was at the time of the murder," Brown wrote. "Meanwhile, a
credible witness — an honors student who had no obvious bias in
favor of Syed — had come forward unsolicited with a recollection
that she had been with Syed around the time of the murder ... Yet
the lawyer did absolutely nothing."

Brown also wrote that Gutierrez erred when she did not seek a
plea deal for Syed, who asked her several times whether a plea
option was available.

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals asked prosecutors to
respond to the post-conviction appeal in September to see whether
they too believed Syed had ineffective counsel in a move Brown
said was highly unusual. Ultimately, as millions of listeners try
and parse the evidence for themselves, what happens next is up to
the judges.

"It's an unusual phenomenon," Brown said. "The Court of Special
Appeals has shown some interest in the case and asked the state
to respond to our application, which is more than they usually do
in this procedural posture. But I truly think the appellate
courts make their decisions based on the merits of the case, and
not the popularity of a podcast."

___

A previous version incorrectly said Lin was killed. Lee, not Lin,
was killed.

Copyright (2014) Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or
redistributed.